Patrick Teahan

Contents

Two instructional videos with Patrick Teahan, LICSW (1 hour 16 minutes total) covering all 19 toxic family rules with relatable childhood trauma examples
10-page workbook with guided writing exercises for each rule — childhood examples and adulthood triggers

In this course, you will learn

The 19 toxic family rules still running your life — Identify the unspoken and spoken rules of your dysfunctional family system, from "be in complete control" and "don't rock the boat" to "read my mind" and "be loyal," and see how many overlap in your own experience

How childhood rules connect to adult reactions — Trace the direct line between rules like "deny feelings," "don't trust," and "it's your fault" and the patterns you live with today, including people-pleasing, hypervigilance, emotional shutdown, and self-blame

What children actually need versus what you got — Understand that children have boundless energy, curiosity, and raw emotion, and that they need to feel love even during conflict — then measure your childhood against that standard to see where things went wrong

How to train your adult self to name what's happening — Begin building the awareness to recognize when a family rule is driving a present-day reaction, giving you choice and control instead of automatic trauma responses

Overview

The Family Rules exercise explores 19 toxic rules that operate — spoken or unspoken — inside dysfunctional family systems. Rules like "be in complete control," "don't rock the boat," "deny feelings," "be loyal," and "it's your fault if things go wrong" shape how children learn to survive, and they don't stop running when you grow up. This course helps you identify which rules operated in your family, connect them to specific childhood memories, and trace how they still show up as triggers, stuck places, and automatic reactions in your adult life.

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Patrick walks through each of the 19 rules across two in-depth videos, providing relatable childhood trauma examples for every one. The 10-page workbook gives you space to do the past-and-present work yourself — writing down childhood examples of each rule alongside the adulthood triggers they connect to. This was the first piece of therapy work Patrick did when he started his own childhood trauma healing twenty-five years ago, and it remains the foundational exercise he uses with clients because naming the rules is the first step toward building the adult awareness that breaks them.

What's included?

Two instructional videos (1 hour 16 minutes total) with relatable examples for all 19 rules

10-page workbook with guided writing exercises for each rule — childhood examples and adulthood triggers

Why This Matters

Most childhood trauma survivors don't realize how much their family's unspoken rules are still running their present life. Rules like "don't rock the boat," "be perfect," "deny feelings," and "it's your fault if things go wrong" don't disappear when you leave home — they become the automatic patterns behind your people-pleasing, your difficulty trusting, your emotional shutdowns, and your self-blame. This course matters because naming those rules is the first step to breaking them. By connecting each rule to specific childhood memories and then tracing it forward to your adult triggers, you build the awareness that lets your adult self respond with choice instead of survival. This was the first therapy exercise Patrick did in his own healing twenty-five years ago — and it remains the foundation of his clinical work today.

Who It’s For

You notice patterns of control, people-pleasing, self-blame, or emotional shutdown in your adult life but haven't been able to name where they come from

You grew up in a family where certain things were never discussed, feelings weren't tolerated, and the adults' needs always came first — and you're starting to see how that shaped you

You want a past-and-present-focused exercise that helps you connect specific childhood experiences to current triggers and stuck places

You're looking for the kind of foundational trauma work that goes deeper than general talk therapy — the exercise Patrick himself started with twenty-five years ago when he began his own healing